Now You See Her (Page 9)
Well, Sweeney thought. She wouldn’t have been surprised if the senator had challenged Richard to an arm-wrestling contest. She wondered if the animosity existed because of what she had seen in the senator’s eyes when he kissed Candra, or if he just didn’t like it because Richard could piss farther than he could. Richard, she thought, didn’t much give a damn one way or the other, which was very adult of him. In any contest between him and the senator, she was on his side; she might not like Richard, exactly—she didn’t know him well enough one way or the other—but she had detested the senator on sight.
“I hear you’re off to Rome.” Candra turned to Margo, her voice as easy as if it didn’t bother her at all that they had witnessed the discord between her and Richard, but Sweeney knew better. Her habit of studying faces made her alert to the most fleeting expression, and the tension around Candra’s eyes was as telling as a neon sign.
“No, that’s been delayed. Carson has an emergency meeting in the morning, with the president.” Top that, said the smugness of her tone. “We’ve postponed the trip—”
The senator began speaking to Richard again, his voice overriding his wife’s, so that Candra had to lean closer to Margo to hear her. Maybe the senator deliberately interrupted women as a way of showing his dominance, or perhaps he simply didn’t notice when they were talking, which was even more insulting.
Sweeney tuned out, hearing the four clashing voices but not the individual words. She wasn’t interested in the McMillans’ trip to Rome, or in stock options, whatever they were. She shifted restlessly, bored, ready to dispense with the business at hand and get back to her apartment and her painting. Why was Richard hanging around, anyway? He couldn’t give two hoots in hell about the senator’s opinions on the stock market. Surely he knew Candra would feel more relaxed if he left. And so would she, Sweeney admitted. She deliberately kept her gaze away from him, afraid of triggering that weird connection again.
“I’m so glad you had this chance to meet Sweeney,” Candra said. The mention of her name brought Sweeney’s attention back with a rush, and she found Candra smiling warmly at her. “I have an example of her work here if you’d like to see it, but unfortunately not any of her portrait work, as that’s done only on commission.”
Sweeney kept her mouth shut, and the portfolio firmly under her arm. She had no intention of showing any of her work now.
“It isn’t important,” Margo said, bored. “I’m sure she’ll do, if you recommend her. What I’m really interested in is the new VanDern you mentioned. I’m sure the colors will go marvelously in the living room.”
Sweeney refrained from rolling her eyes, but it was difficult. She couldn’t fault the woman for wanting her wall decor to complement the room, because color was vital to Sweeney’s own sense of well-being, but … a VanDern? He was a hot commodity right now, but he was a sly, talentless clod who daubed huge clumps of color on a canvas and called it art.
“I’m sure they will,” Candra agreed, indicating with a graceful wave of her hand the direction of the VanDern.
Sweeney had no intention of trailing along behind them. “I have to go,” she said, gripping her portfolio. She needed the job, she really, really needed the job, and she steeled herself to say something polite and make arrangements to begin after the couple returned from Rome. She opened her mouth and heard, “I’m sorry, but I can’t do your portraits, Mrs. McMillan. I’m booked.”
The words surprised even herself. So much for good intentions, but at least she had given a polite lie instead of saying she had despised the couple on sight and the only way she would paint them would be if she could add horns, goatees, and pitchforks. She was a little proud of herself; a Tibetan goatherd couldn’t have come up with such a good lie.
“What?” Margo looked startled. Candra’s lovely face looked first amazed, then alarmed, as if she had begun imagining all the responses Sweeney could make to Margo’s incredulous question. Sweeney didn’t give herself time to think of any. She had to get out of there before her thin layer of tolerance for fools and jerks was worn through and she said something that would really embarrass Candra. She swung around and headed for the door, going as fast as she could without actually running.
She switched the portfolio to her left hand and reached out with her right to grab the door handle, but a tall body was suddenly right next to her and a dark-clad arm shot out in front of her, blocking her way. Over her head a deep voice said, ‘Allow me. I was just leaving, too. Good-bye, Senator, Mrs. McMillan. Kai.”
Startled by the novelty of having a door opened for her, Sweeney didn’t think to call her own goodbyes. To be honest, it wasn’t just Richard’s courtesy that had startled her, but his closeness. Her stomach jittered again. It was unsettling to have him right next to her when only moments before she had been mentally stripping him.
Richard let the door close behind them and for a moment they were enclosed in the silence of the small vestibule, the smoked glass of the outer door dimming the sunshine outside. Then he stepped past her and opened that door, too, his movement bringing him so close that his suit jacket brushed her arm and the quiet scent of expensive cologne drifted to her nose. Another jolt hit her, accompanied by a sudden wave of physical awareness.
This wouldn’t do. This wouldn’t do at all. Bemused, she stepped out onto the sidewalk. First the Diet Coke commercial this morning and now Richard, of all people. Maybe there was a full moon or something, though lunar cycles had never before affected her hormones. Not much of anything had. Maybe she should make a doctor’s appointment, make sure her ovaries hadn’t suddenly gone into overdrive, flooding her with an overdose of unruly hormones. If they were going to do that, they should have done it when she was a teenager and didn’t know any better. She was thirty-one now and didn’t have either the time or the inclination to indulge in any hormonal frivolity.